recently Microsft published a list of video encoders tested for Live streaming with Microsoft Stream (http://bit.ly/LiveEnc).
One of this products is OBS Studio, a free and open source software for video recording and live streamig (https://obsproject.com/).

This is a great news and big improvement on live events direction compared to Skype for Business.
This area (meetings, meetings recording and live events) is definitely the one that I love in Teams (in conjunction with Stream).

In this article you will find:
– Live Events with Microsoft Teams
– Live Events with Microsoft Stream
– OBS Studio setup
– OBS Studio streaming

Live Events with Microsoft Teams

Click on Meetings tab -> Schedule a meeting

Be careful to click on the arrow to open the meeting type window and choose New live event

Fill meeting informations and click Next

Now you have to choose Live event settings.
These are the default settings, Org-wide and Teams as producer
But we want to use an external encoder like OBS Studio, so we need to change the production type to External encoder.
Note: doing that will greyed out the Public option.
This table show you why: Who can watch live events?

Meeting is ready and published in Stream.
Click Join to start the pre-live setup

When you join the live meeting you will see a window like this one.
Note that the meeting is powered by Stream, that you are Offline and follow the instruction on the left.
First of all you have to click Start setup to prepare the live meeting

Wait few seconds…

Now the live meeting is ready to accept incoming stream from your external encoder (OBS Studio in this article).
Note that you are now in Pre-Live status.
Copy the Server Ingest URL on the right, we’ll use it with OBS Studio later

Live Events with Microsoft Stream

After the event is saved, you will see the informations to send the stream from an external encoder. In Select encoder choose Configure manually because OBS Studio is not listed (yet).
Note also that the Live event is saved but not published. Click on Publish now to set the event public to your Company.To go in Pre-Live status click on Start setup.

Few seconds after, the live event is ready

Now you are in Pre-Live status.
Copy the Server Ingest URL, we’ll use it with OBS Studio later

OBS Studio setup

As said before, OBS Studio is a free and open source software for video recording and live streamig, you can download it from the official site https://obsproject.com/download

First of all, there is a Portable Edition (in my utopian world every program should be Portable!), plus the program is free, plus there are many plug-in (https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/), and last but not least it’s very stable, I’ve used it during many tests without any issue.

It’s important to understand that this article is not a guide to OBS Studio (I’ll write other article on this program in the future), I’ll give you only the basic informations to start sending video streams to Teams and Microsoft Stream.

OBS Studio first impression is a bit “hard”. This is the main window

In this article I’ll add few sources to compose the video layout.

Desktop with PowerPoint presentation

In Sources click on the + icon -> Display Capture

Select Create new then inser the name of the source (for example Display 2)

Choose the correct display where PowerPoint is open

The new Dysplay 2 source is placed in upper-left corner.
To crop the area hold the Alt key and drag the bounding box.
The edges will change to green to show it’s being cropped
Drag the bounding box to resize

Video capture device(s)

Now add two different cameras.
In Sources click on the + icon -> Video Capture Device

Select Create new then inser the name of the source (for example CAM1)

In Device choose the right camera

Repeat this step to add a second camera attached to the same PC.
In this example I have a Logitech Rally Camera connected to my laptop

Place CAM1 and CAM2 where you want on the scene

Scrolling text

To finish the scene composition, we can add some scrolling text, just to show you how powerful is OBS Studio
In Sources click on the + icon -> Text (GDI+)

Select Create new then inser the name of the source (for example Scrolling Text)

Insert the text you want than click OK

Select the new source, right-click on it then select Filters

In Effect Filters click on the + icon -> Scroll

Choose the Horizontal Speed you prefer, then click Close

Place and resize the scrolling text object where you want
The scene should be something like this one.

OBS Studio streaming

Now the final step, configure OBS Studio to send the video stream to Microsoft Teams or Microsoft Stream (the process is the same).

In Controls click on Settings

Select Stream, then Custom Streaming Server in Stream Type

In Microsoft Teams copy the Server Ingest URL
If the Live Event is created in Stream, copy the Server Ingest URL from Stream

Paste the Server Ingest URL in OBS Studio Settings
Make SURE you enter something as Stream key, it’s not important what you enter, a random numer is perfect, but is MANDATORY to add something here, then click OK

Click Start Streaming in Controls to start video output to Teams or Streams

After few seconds you will start to see the video stream from OBS Studio in Microsoft Teams
This is the same in Microsoft Stream (with a different Server Ingest URL)

Hi,
I’m trying to tun OBS with microsoftstream but keep on getting error “invalid path or connection url” what can be the issue?? I’ve added admin authentication to the stream settings… can it be it just takes time from when I create an even until I can access it via OBS?
Thank you